English and Digital LiteraciesUnit 3.1: Introduction to Digital Storytelling

Bessie MitsikopoulouSchool of Philosophy

Faculty of English Language and Literature

2Introduction to Digital Storytelling

Defining a story

Task: • What is a story?• Try to come up with a definition of a story.

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Types of stories

Task: • Can you think of some different types of

stories? • How would you categorize stories?

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Different ways to tell a story

Task:

Can you think of some of the different ways that can be used to tell a story?

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Importance of stories

Task: • Why, in your opinion, are stories important?• Watch a video on storytelling. Why are

stories important according to the video?

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Storytelling explained

Watch the video: Storytelling

[1]

The art of storytelling going digitalDigital storytelling

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What is digital storytelling?

Task:

Drawing on your own experience, what is digital storytelling? Provide your own definition of the term.

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Digital Storytelling

Storytelling:• the telling or writing of

stories.• an ancient art form and

a valuable form of human expression.

Digital:• the practice of using

computer-based tools to tell stories.

• the focus is on a specific topic and a particular point of view.

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Storytelling vs Digital Storytelling

“Digital Storytelling is the modern expression of the ancient art of storytelling”. (Barrett, 2007)

“As is the case with traditional storytelling, digital stories revolve around a chosen theme and often contain a particular viewpoint.” (Robin, 2008)

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Digital Storytelling Explained (1/2)

“Digital storytelling combines the art of telling stories with a variety of digital multimedia, such as images, audio, and video. Just about all digital stories bring together some mixture of digital graphics, text, recorded audio narration, video and music to present information on a specific topic.” (Robin, 2008)

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Digital Storytelling Explained (2/2)

“A digital story is a 2-to-4 minute digital video clip, most often told in first person narrative, recorded with your own voice, illustrated mostly with still images, and with an optional music track to add emotional tone.” (Barrett, 2007)

Types of Digital Stories

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Types of digital stories (1/2)

There are many different types of digital stories, but it is possible to categorize the major types into the following three major groups:

1. personal narratives – stories that contain accounts of significant incidents in one’s life,

2. historical documentaries – stories that examine dramatic events that help us understand the past,

3. stories designed to inform or instruct the viewer on a particular concept or practice.

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Types of digital stories (2/2)

And of course… stories can be created using combinations of these three methods such as autobiographical stories that use historical material as the backdrop of a personal narrative.

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Personal narratives Personal narratives are one of the most popular types of digital stories with multiple benefits in an educational setting:• other students who view the story learn about

people from diverse backgrounds other than their own,

• can be used to facilitate discussion about current issues such as race and multiculturalism,

• sharing of their personal stories brings students closer to each other.

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Different types of personal stories (1/2)

• Stories About Someone Important:– Character Stories.

– Hero Stories.

• Stories About Events:– Adventure Stories.

– Accomplishment Stories.

• Stories About What I Do.

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Different types of personal stories (2/2)

• Stories About a Place in My life:– Room, House, City, Town Stories.

• Other Personal Stories:– Stories About Dreams and Goals.– Recovery Stories.– Love Stories.– Stories About a Thing in My Life.– Stories About Family Celebrations.

• Stories About My Life.

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Another categorization of Digital Story Genres

• Narrative:– Personal Expression, – Myths/Folk Tales,– Short Story.

• Informative/Expository– Summary Reports,– Book Reports,– How-to Directions,– Biographies.

• Persuasive:– Documentary, – Advertisements,– Public Service

Announcement,– Describe/Conclude,– Analyze/Conclude,– Analyze/Persuade,– Compare/Contrast,– Cause/Effect.

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Remember!

A digital story is a multimodal text. Multimodal texts contain the interaction and integration of two or more semiotic resources – or ‘modes’ of communication – in order to achieve the communicative functions of the text. Examples are:

• websites which contain audio clips alongside the words, or

• film which uses words, music, sound effects and moving images.

Examples of digital stories

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Task

For each of the following examples try to identify the different modes e.g. written text, dialogue pictures, animation, video voice over, sound effects background music.

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Example 1

Watch the video: The power of words

[2]

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The power of words

• Genre:– multimodal narrative.

• Modes:– moving picture, video,

– background music,

– written language (the two signs),

– spoken language (short dialogue).

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Example 2

Watch the video: The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs

[3]

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The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs

• Genre:– Narrative, fairy tale (good for primary kids).

• Modes - Combination of: – still pictures,

– drawings,

– text,

– audio (narration).

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Example 3

Watch the video: Tweety

[4]

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Tweety

• Genre:– Personal narrative.

• Modes:– Pictures,

– Loud music (no voice over),

– Running text (as subtitles),

– Credits (at the end).

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ReferencesBarrett, H. (2006). Researching and evaluating digital storytelling

as a deep learning tool. In Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference (Vol. 2006, No. 1, pp. 647-654).

Robin, B. R. (2008). Digital storytelling: A powerful technology tool for the 21st century classroom. Theory into practice, 47(3), 220-228.

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Financing• The present educational material has been developed as part of the

educational work of the instructor.

• The project “Open Academic Courses of the University of Athens” has only financed the reform of the educational material.

• The project is implemented under the operational program “Education and Lifelong Learning” and funded by the European Union (European Social Fund) and National Resources.

Notes

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Note on History of Published Version

The present work is the edition 1.0.

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Reference Note Copyright National and Kapodistrian University of Athens , Bessie Mitsikopoulou 2014. Bessie Mitsikopoulou. “English and Digital Literacies. Introduction to Digital Storytelling”. Edition: 1.0. Athens 2014. Available at: http://opencourses.uoa.gr/courses/ENL10/.

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Licensing Note The current material is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license or later International Edition. The individual works of third parties are excluded, e.g. photographs, diagrams etc. They are contained therein and covered under their conditions of use in the section «Use of Third Parties Work Note».

[1] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

As Non-Commercial is defined the use that:• Does not involve direct or indirect financial benefits from the use of the work for the

distributor of the work and the license holder.• Does not include financial transaction as a condition for the use or access to the work. • Does not confer to the distributor and license holder of the work indirect financial benefit

(e.g. advertisements) from the viewing of the work on website .

The copyright holder may give to the license holder a separate license to use the work for commercial use, if requested.

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Preservation NoticesAny reproduction or adaptation of the material should include:

the Reference Note, the Licensing Note,

the declaration of Notices Preservation,

the Use of Third Parties Work Note (if available),

together with the accompanied URLs.

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Note of use of third parties workThis work makes use of the following works :

Images/Figures/Diagrams/Photographs

Image 1: Screenshot of the video “MSLGROUP Storytelling”, Standard YouTube Licence, Youtube.

Image 2: Screenshot of the video “The Power of Words”, Standard YouTube Licence, Youtube.

Image 3: Screenshot of the video “The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs”, Standard YouTube Licence, Youtube.

Image 4: Screenshot of the video “Tweety”, All rights reserved, botch1969, Photopeach.